Collection highlights, news about acquisitions, events and exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
“The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport,” tells the early history of the Gay Games with material from the Gay Games Collection (MSSP 10070) a manuscript collection housed in RBSC. As the exhibit explains, organizers originally adopted the name “Gay Olympic Games.” But, weeks before the opening ceremonies, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) filed a lawsuit and received an injunction prohibiting use of the word “Olympic” in association with the event. Organizers hastily rebranded as the “Gay Games,” and the competitions continued as scheduled in the late summer of 1982 in San Francisco.
In addition to materials on display in the exhibit, the Gay Games Collection contains other items documenting this story and recording the dogged persistence of the LGBTQ community and allies in establishing and hosting the Gay Games. A recently acquired copy of the August 1982 Gay OlympicsNewsletter, for example, visually demonstrates how organizers of the event responded to the USOC lawsuit. The newsletter editors explained in bold print: “We are not barred, however, from blocking out the world ‘OLYMPIC’ and continuing our efforts. THE GAMES WILL GO ON!!”
Gay Olympics Newsletter (MSSP10070-01-02)
The Games did, indeed, go on, and the Gay Games Collection in RBSC contains material documenting the first four Gay Games from 1982 through 1994. Gay Games II was also held in San Francisco, and, from the beginning, the Gay Games included and emphasized cultural and artistic activities that celebrated the accomplishments of LGBTQ people. A program for the Procession of the Arts, for example, detailed the “cultural events” associated with Gay Games II.
Front covers of the Procession of the Arts program (MSSP10070-02-03) and the Official Program of Gay Games II (MSSP10070-02-01) from 1986.
Throughout its existence, the Gay Games have been a welcoming, inclusive, and safe space for all athletes, spectators, fans, and allies. This flier from Gay Games III held in Vancouver in 1990 described the “Special Philosophy” of the event:
The Games are open to everyone who supports their philosophy of inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. “Participation and doing one’s personal best are more important than winning,” said founder [Dr. Tom] Waddell. “Our friendly competitions have worked well to remove age, sex, and racial stereotypes.”
Gay Games III flier (MSSP10070-03-04)
Since their founding, the Gay Games have been a popular participatory and spectator event for LGBTQ people and allies, and promoters of the games have created many different types of items to allow fans to demonstrate their support. For Gay Games I, the Gertrude Stein Philatelic Society produced a collectible cachet—or decorative commemorative envelope—celebrating “The First Gay Olympic Games.” Collectible pins have also proven popular. The colorful pins below advertised San Francisco’s “Gay Games II – Triumph in ‘86” and “Gay Games IV – Unity ‘94” held in New York City in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
Gay Games I cachet (MSSP10070-01-10)Gay Games II pin (MSSP10070-02-07) and Gay Games IV pin (MSSP10070-04-06)
The exhibit Cultivating Community will be on display and open to the public during regular RBSC hours through July 17th. Now a major quadrennial international sporting event, Gay Games XII will run in Valencia from June 27th through July 4th.
The Gay Games Collection is available and open to researchers, and RBSC welcomes donations of new material about the history of the Gay Games.
Best wishes to the 2026 graduates of the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College, from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections.
We would particularly like to congratulate the following students who worked for Special Collections during their time on campus:
Rocío Colón Cotto (ND ’26), Bachelor of Arts in Art History, Bachelor of Arts in Chinese
Ashley Estelle (ND ’26), Bachelor of Arts in History
José Hurtado (ND ’26), Bachelor of Architecture
Both images: MSE/EM 110-1B, Diploma, University of Padua, 1690
RBSC will be closed Monday, May 25, for Memorial Day.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
This exhibition highlights examples of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning. Showcasing narratives spanning centuries and continents, each story demonstrates that the power of constructing community and cultivating hope transcends time and place.
The exhibition features six distinct collections housed in the Rare Books & Special Collections, and is curated by Hesburgh Libraries faculty members. Click below to learn more about each of the individual exhibits within the exhibition:
Curated by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu.All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
This St. Patrick’s Day and in the March–April spotlight exhibit, Rare Books and Special Collections celebrates the youth of Ireland, who were seen in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the true soul of the Irish Nation. After all, if Irish independence were to be achieved, nationalists would first have to win the hearts and minds of the next generation.
In 1842, a group known as Young Ireland founded a newspaper called The Nation to advocate for a politically independent Ireland. The Nation envisioned an Irish identity undivided by race or religion; united by Irish language and culture; and forged from a romanticized version of Irish history. To achieve these ends, Young Ireland sought a legion more formidable than a thousand men clad in steel: The young intellect of the country.1
One of our prized collections is a series of draft songs composed for The Nation newspaper by one of the founders of Young Ireland, Thomas Davis (Thomas Davis Collection, MSE/IR 1001). Although Davis tragically died of scarlet fever at age thirty, many of his compositions (“A Nation Once Again,” “The West’s Asleep,” and “Lament for Owen Roe O’Neill”), intended to inspire the Irish youth of his time, are still sung today.
Although the British banned the speaking of Irish and the teaching of Ireland’s history from the national school system, associations inspired by the Young Ireland Movement began to encourage children to study the Irish language, play Gaelic sports, and perform Irish drama and music. This alternative education included journals such as Young Ireland (1875-1891) and groups like the Irish Fireside Club (founded 1887), which helped foster a new national identity among the nation’s youth.
These activities served as training grounds for future nationalists and paved the way for the formation of Connradh na Gaedhilge (The Gaelic League) in 1893. This organization continued to solicit the support of Irish youth, and published numerous books, pamphlets, and broadsides intended to ensure children remained at the forefront of the revival of Irish language and culture.
First published by Connradh na Gaedhilge in 1902, An tÁilleán was written by Tadhg Ó Donnchadha (‘Torna’) with illustrations of the ideal country life by Seoirse Ua Fágáin.
‘Torna’ dedicated the book to the youth of Ireland, saying, “Cuimhnighidh air gur i nÉirinn do rugadh sibh, gur ceart dúinn ár ndícheall do dhéanamh ar son Éireann; maireamhaint agus bás d’fhágháil i nÉirinn; agus ó’s í an Gaedhilg ár dTeanga féin, í labhairt í comhnuidhe.” [Remember that you were born in Ireland, and we must do our best for Ireland; to live and die in Ireland; and since Irish is our own language, speak it always.]
Fuínn na Smól (Songs of the Thrushes) is a collection of Irish tunes drawn from manuscripts, oral tradition, and shorter printed works. An tAthair Pádruig Breathnach (1848–1930), a Catholic priest and member of the Gaelic League, collected Irish songs from his parishioners in his youth. He later published them in a series of works like this one, with each tune printed in the Gaelic typeface and set to a melody in tonic solfa.
Although dedicated to children learning Irish in school, these songbooks had much to offer adults committed to the de-anglicization program of the Gaelic League. Sales ran into the tens of thousands, and they had a lasting influence on the Irish oral tradition.2
When Gaelic revivalism became more political, groups like Na Fianna Éireann (Boy Scouts of Ireland), founded in 1909, emerged to support a future military insurrection. First published in 1914, the Fianna Handbook served as the official guide and training manual for Na Fianna Éireann. The Fianna Handbook was the Irish nationalist alternative to the Baden-Powell Boy Scout handbook, with the Fianna portrayed holding rifles, in contrast to the Baden-Powell Scouts, who carried walking sticks.
The guide featured training in signaling, first aid, camping, and military drill, but also contained chapters devoted to a cultural nationalist education. Patrick Pearse contributed a chapter on the legendary Fianna; Countess Markievicz, the group’s founder and ‘Chief,’ wrote an inspiring foreword and designed the cover; Roger Casement penned an essay on chivalry; and Douglas Hyde submitted a chapter in the Irish language.
Current and former Fianna participated in the 1916 Easter Rising, and the organization later worked alongside the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21).
Eighty years after Young Ireland founded The Nation newspaper, the Irish Free State was declared, and Irish Independence followed soon after. The Gaelic revival survived largely because it recognized that nobody was too young to serve their country, and the new Irish state found many former “Firesiders” and Fianna members serving in leadership roles. These once pint-sized radicals ensured that their dream of a free, Gaelic Ireland would pass to the next generation of Irish children.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, March 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Giorgia Buscema and Madeline Grossman.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Women Religious in Male Spaces David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Join Professor Guyda Armstrong (University of Manchester) and Dr Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) for an interactive workshop showcasing new digital methods for studying early modern printing. This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Spring ’26! Here are some things to watch for in Special Collections during the coming semester.
Special Collections Welcomed a New Postdoctoral Research Associate during the Fall 2025 Semester
Ruben Celani (Photo by Matt Cashore / University of Notre Dame)
Ruben Celani, Ph.D., joined the Hesburgh Libraries in October as a postdoctoral research associate in Italian Studies and Zahm Dante Collection curatorial fellow. He works in Rare Books & Special Collections as a subject liaison for Italian studies and curator of the Libraries’ extensive rare Italian collections, while also pursuing his own academic research.
Prior to joining the Hesburgh Libraries, Celani served as an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. He holds a Ph.D. from Ghent University in Literary Studies with specialization in Italian Studies, as well as a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Archival and Library Sciences from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Ruben has experience working in libraries in Rome, The Hague, and Antwerp.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day (January 19th), the birthday of Jackie Robinson (January 31st), and Black History Month (February), Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlights examples from its collection of souvenir fan pennants from the Negro Baseball Leagues. The colorful collectible felt souvenir pennants represent leading Black baseball teams of the 1930s and 1940s and feature large screen-printed graphics of African American baseball players in action.
Curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection).
Created across multiple centuries, geographies, and cultures, pre-Hispanic clay sellos (flat and cylindrical stamps and seals) are celebrated as the earliest manifestation of Mesoamerican print culture. This cross-repository Spotlight Exhibit presents a selection of sellos stewarded by the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art; two emblematic publications of sello designs, preserved in the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections; and contemporary examples of sello-inspired visual arts.
Curated by Payton Phillips-García Quintanilla (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
These and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.All exhibits are free and open to the public during regular hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will teach sessions related to our holdings to undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.
In her speech to celebrate the opening of Christine Dunlap Farnham’s Archive at Brown University, feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott reflected on the lack of attention to women’s personal collections and archives that memorialize their lives.1 The exhibit “Social Media Networks in the 19th and 20th Centuries: The Albums of Esmeralda Cervantes, Teresa Puelma de Orrego, Luz de Sagaceta, María Enriqueta Camarillo,” recently installed in Rare Books and Special Collections (Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame), seeks to build on Scott’s insights by highlighting women’s friendship albums and scrapbooks as vital historical documents that deserve a place on display.
Curated by members of the upper-level Spanish course “Women’s Culture in 19th Century Latin America” at the University of Notre Dame, this exhibit focuses on preserving and showing the importance of women’s stories through material culture. In this course, we explore the cultural and intellectual contributions of women in 19th- and early 20th-century Latin America, examining how gender shaped ideas of citizenship, sexuality, and education in post-independence societies. Among our study of literature, periodicals, and other women’s public interventions, albums emerge as a novel object for understanding 19th- and 20th-century sociability.
19th century albums were typically blank books that served as repositories for various collectible objects and writings. For women, in particular, albums were a crucial medium for engaging with writing and visual culture, shaping identity, and creating bonds outside the domestic sphere. Pages within the albums vary in content, including personal letters, poetry, pieces of artwork, and autographs, among others. Each album serves as a tangible representation of the illustrious life of the woman who curated it.
As part of the coursework, we were also introduced to the fascinating world of Rare Books and Special Collections, a space that allowed us to work hands-on with the friendship albums and scrapbooks of four women from the 19th and early 20th century Hispanic world held at the Notre Dame’s archives: Esmeralda Cervantes, Luz de Sagaceta, Maria Enriqueta Camarillo, and Teresa Puelma de Orrego.
Researching them revealed a challenging but fruitful journey. We found that women’s stories were poorly cataloged or entirely absent from historical archives, while the information on similar works of male counterparts from their time were easily accessible through a simple Google search. This lack of documentation is not accidental but rather revealing of a greater theme: the historical discrimination of women in academic spaces and historical accounts, even among elite women. Traditional academia has undervalued their work, and left it outside of the literary canon. Our research, however, reveals the profound importance of their activities in shaping the culture and politics of their era. By reconstructing women’s stories through their friendship albums and scrapbooks, objects often dismissed as trivial or not relevant outside the private sphere, we engage in an act of recovery and critical analysis. Each page becomes evidence of an intellectual world that has always existed but was never fully recognized. Our goal is not simply to display their work but to restore women’s historical presence by centering the very objects and writings that belonged to them.
Album coverFirst page of the album signed by Argentine writer Adolfo Mitre during Cervantes’s visit to Buenos Aires.Letter signed by Spanish writer and feminist Emilia Serrano, who was also traveling in Latin America during Cervantes’s tour.Album amicorum de Esmeralda Cervantes, 1875-1877 (MSH/LAT 0094)
The album belonging to Clotilde Cerdá (1861–1926), better known by her artistic name, Esmeralda Cervantes, meticulously documents her highly publicized Latin American tour between 1875 and 1877. Born in Barcelona, she had achieved renown across Europe as a prodigious harpist by the age of fourteen. The prominent selection of “Esmeralda” rather than “Clotilde” to be hand-embroidered on the album’s center signifies her wish to delineate her professional trajectory from her private identity, asserting that she be primarily remembered for her musical accomplishments. Though the velvet cover has faded with time, the enclosed collection of drawings, poems, and dedicatory letters—all paying homage to her—preserves the intellectual and artistic worldview she cultivated through her art.
Album coverPoem in English with botanic motifs adorning the page. Albums were usually multilingual and spoke of the transnational connections of their owners.Album amicorum de Teresa Puelma de Orrego, 1851-1893 (MSH/LAT 0119)
The album of Teresa Puelma de Orrego, who was born in Santiago de Chile in 1861, offers a glimpse into the upper-class world of Chile during the 19th century. She was the daughter of an aristocratic family and lived most of her life in Chile. Her album contains a collection of letters and signatures from prominent politicians and generals, family mementos, and prayers in French, English, and Spanish. Notable entries include a condolence letter from Chilean President Jorge Montt and a hand-drawn map of the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), fought between Chile and an alliance of Peru and Bolivia and originated from a territorial dispute. The album itself is highly ornate: the cover is made of thick dark green fabric with her name embroidered in gold thread on the front. There is little information about her other than what exists in this album, inviting us to “read” the silences surrounding her as part of the historical record itself, and work to fill in those silences with our own original research.
Album coverPainting by Roberto MontenegroPoem by Jesús Valenzuela, 1904Album de recuerdos de la Señorita Luz Sagaceta, 1904-1905 (MSH/LAT 0095)
Luz Sagaceta was born in 1886 in Mexico City and was eighteen years old when her album was assembled. Through newspapers and the works in her album, we know that she was part of Mexico’s Porfirian elite. As members of this social class, she and her family were well-known enough to be noted in print culture and had the means to travel. Her album reveals the privilege she possessed, a privilege few women enjoyed: the opportunity to create an album, a subtle space of authorship. Luz’s album includes contributions from authors such as Jesus E. Valenzuela, Amado Nervo, Ruben M. Campos, and Jesus Urueta. These authors dedicated poems to her; some were inspired by Luz’ beauty, while others addressed topics of personal significance, such as the important women in their lives. This demonstrates that Luz had sufficient significance for them to offer genuine, personal tributes.
Album coverTitle page of the first volumeClippings of portrait and literary profile of the author published in the literary journal Album de Damas, Mexico, 1908.Juicios de prensa acerca de María Enriqueta y de sus libros: recortes y copias de opiniones publicadas en diarios y revistas de varios países, 1897-1940 (MSH/LAT 0118, t. 1-3)
Maria Enriqueta Camarillo, a celebrated Mexican novelist, poet, translator, and educator, used her meticulously kept albums to showcase her multifaceted talents, intellectual collaborations, and commitment to community, offering an analogue to contemporary social media. These collections, filled with her work, scholarly praise, sketches, and photographs, functioned as social connectors, highlighting her versatility, her international image, and the significant professional and personal relationships that were central to her life and Mexican culture. For the modern reader, engaging with Camarillo’s scattered yet beautiful albums provides an invaluable perspective—a welcome into a 19th-century life that otherwise might not have been fully told—and serves as a formative lesson in accepting historical complexity and narrative ambiguity rather than seeking immediate, structured answers.
Exploring the lives of these women through their albums was an enlightening experience. As a class, we were able to travel back in time to learn about their lives and gain insight into the society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first step of this process was reading about our albums from materials provided in class. Then, we had the chance to step outside of the classroom and into Special Collections to work with the physical albums. Working closely with library staff, curators, and specialists allowed us to fully immerse ourselves in the materiality of women’s archives. We gained tangible access to the lives of these women, feeling the texture of the album fabrics and carefully turning their pages.
Curating the physical exhibit proved equally enriching, as we took ownership of every step: from item selection and display design to writing introductory texts and labels—a long process requiring intensive collaboration with library specialists. This hands-on experience transformed us from simple student observers into the main actors of a historical recovery project, contributing to something larger that the audience would later enjoy.
The influence of these albums is still evident today in the digital tools and platforms we use to curate and preserve our own memories. Digital content, including posts on Instagram and videos on YouTube, effectively creates a personal digital archive—a collection of memories that visually represents an individual’s most significant social ties and interests, essentially acting as a form of “writing with scissors,” as coined by Ellen Gruber Garvey. While the medium has transformed from handwritten cursive to the digital scrapbook, the fundamental purpose—to preserve selfhood and community—endures, allowing these personal archives to leave a lasting impact on all who encounter them.
The project extended this hands-on approach to a general audience through the “Create Your Own Album Page” activity held on specific dates. This initiative has been a great source of direct and immediate feedback from visitors, including library staff, faculty, and students. Their most frequent reaction has been surprise and delight that the archives are not only part of an undergraduate class but also the inspiration for a collective and participatory project.
With this activity, the archives are truly brought to life. Our proposal of thinking of the albums as the precedent of social media creates a more direct, intimate connection with every visitor: guests are invited to contribute their own unique page to a communal album. Contributions have spanned songs, original poems, verses by renowned writers in various languages, thoughtful collages, dedications to loved ones, and letters—mirroring the rich and diverse content found in the 19th- and 20th-century albums we studied. Visitors of this exhibit become active participants in the enduring legacy of “writing with scissors,” experiencing firsthand the fundamental human impulse to curate and share selfhood.
Bella Barraza, Isabella Cioffi, Ryan Farrell, Meghan Garrity, Luke Grantz, Sophia Hohman, Marshall Horton, Ella Johnson, Kate Kirwan, Elizabeth Larsen, Felipe Nino, Thomas Phillips, Monica Schleg and Jhoseline Trejo, enrolled in ROSP 40790, Women’s Culture in 19th-Century Latin America, taught byVanesa MiseresPh.D. (Associate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures).
